A lopsided win on Labour Day Monday guarantees absolutely nothing five days later.

The Calgary Stampeders don’t need to be reminded of that, especially with the lessons of last year’s back-to-back against the Edmonton Eskimos so fresh in their memories.

In 2016, the Stampeders battered the Eskimos 45-24 in the Labour Day Classic, and the 21-point margin of victory was the exact same as in the 2017 edition of the annual all-Alberta showdown that went down Monday.

Five days later in 2016, though, the Stampeders and Eskimos were in an absolute dogfight at Commonwealth Stadium and the Calgarians needed overtime to leave Edmonton with a 34-28 win.

“It was a tough, tough game last year but our guys fought hard and were able to pull it out,” said Stampeders head coach Dave Dickenson. “So we’ll keep it the way we think is the best way to do it, which is more of a learning week with one day of work. It’s going to take a lot to get two wins over these guys.”

Practice on Wednesday felt like more of a walkthrough than anything, and while there will surely be some new twists added to the gameplan for Saturday, staying healthy and fresh appeared to be the priority.

The Stampeders seemed to emerge from Monday’s game without any major injuries, so they’re on their way, but winning back-to-back games against any team in the CFL remains a huge challenge.

So far this season, nobody’s managed to do it.

The Stampeders tied the Ottawa RedBlacks in their season opener and then beat the reigning Grey Cup champions 43-39 in a week later, but that’s as close as anybody’s come.

The B.C. Lions beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 30-15 in Week 7, only for the Green & White to hammer them 41-8 a week later in the rematch.

Similarly, the Montreal Alouettes outlasted the Toronto Argonauts for a 21-9 win in Week 8, but were hammered 38-6 by the Argos when they took the field again the following week.

“Typically, what you get is whoever wins the first game thinks ‘let’s not reinvent the wheel and whatever we did the first time, let’s do it better’, ” said Stamps QB Bo Levi Mitchell. “And the second team goes back and changes a bunch of things and makes it tough on you.

“To me, it’s recreating that, being smart and knowing we’ve got to change things up and make things look different and do different things in order to make it hard on them on offence, defence and special teams. If not, we come out with the same game and they react better.”

In last year’s Labour Day Replay, the Stampeders came out flat to start the game and had to claw their way back. On the Eskimos’ very first offensive play, quarterback Mike Reilly connected with Derel Walker – who re-signed in Edmonton on Wednesday after trying his hand at the NFL – for a 104-yard touchdown pass.

By halftime, the Eskimos led 17-3, and avoiding a repeat of last year’s slow start has to be a priority for the Stampeders.

The team knows all of that and they’re well aware of just how hard it is to win back-to-backs, but on Wednesday Dickenson sounded like a man who believed his team was more than capable of rising to the challenge.

“You make them aware of it but you don’t dwell on it,” Dickenson said. “You play your game and you just believe the guys emotionally will be as ready as physically. I think that plays into it as much as anything. We’re humans and when you have success against a team, maybe you relax a little bit and the other team obviously steps it up.

“Everyone’s pretty much equal player-wise, I don’t think any team doesn’t have talent, so you’ve gotta play your best to beat that team.”